{"id":3212,"date":"2015-10-07T22:50:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T21:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3212"},"modified":"2015-10-07T22:50:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T21:50:28","slug":"inferno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3212","title":{"rendered":"Inferno"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the day,\u00a0What If…?<\/em> used to\u00a0do nothing but imagine what might have happened if\u00a0a high-profile story had turned out differently. \u00a0The answers tended to be pretty similar:\u00a0something terrible would have happened\u00a0– otherwise, what\u00a0would it say about the stakes in the\u00a0original story? \u00a0Bad things would ensue,\u00a0alternate versions of major characters would probably die, and some sort of bittersweet redemptive ending would follow. \u00a0It’s where the premise tends to lead you.<\/p>\n

So with the\u00a0Secret Wars<\/em> X-books playing such a straight bat in terms of\u00a0revisiting old stories,\u00a0maybe it was inevitable that we would end up with a dystopia glut. \u00a0It’s more surprising to see two separate books both built around the set-up of the X-Men quarantining an island.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Inferno<\/em> lends itself to that idea more naturally than\u00a0X-Cutioner’s Song<\/em>. \u00a0The\u00a01989 crossover involved the demons of limbo invading Manhattan and all the buildings, cars and street furniture coming to life. \u00a0If the X-Men don’t win that one, you’re pretty much looking at quarantining the island.<\/p>\n

The original “Inferno” is slightly unusual in X-Men crossovers, in that\u00a0it was actually the pay-off to\u00a0the long-running\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> storyline of Magik’s\u00a0corruption by\u00a0her Darkchilde persona. \u00a0It also had the X-Men meeting X-Factor for the first time (after “Morlock\u00a0Massacre” was carefully structured to keep them apart),\u00a0and trying to stop Madelyne\u00a0Pryor from sacrificing her\u00a0baby son\u00a0in order to bring demons to Earth. \u00a0But they were off to the side of Magik’s story, which was what it was really all about.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, though,\u00a0“Inferno” was a chance to\u00a0spend three months drawing a completely nuts version of New York where the buildings tried to eat people. \u00a0From a strictly logical standpoint it’s slightly surprising that there was anyone left alive in the city at the end, but let’s not quibble. \u00a0Artists like\u00a0Bret Blevins and Walt Simonson\u00a0were perfectly suited to this sort of thing.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t easily lend itself to a stable environment for sequels, though. \u00a0So Dennis Hopeless and Javier Garron back off a little bit here. \u00a0There’s still a lot of\u00a0doorways transformed into gaping mouths, but it’s more cosmetic;\u00a0the doors don’t actually try to eat people. \u00a0Even so, what’s left\u00a0is a demonic Manhattan whose human\u00a0population seem to be pretty clearly out of the picture,\u00a0while the Darkchilde and Maddie Pryor fight over control of what’s left, and the X-Men sit on the mainland and keep up the barrier. \u00a0(It seems there are still people living in the other boroughs, too, though you’d imagine house prices have fallen a bit.)<\/p>\n

It’s a Colossus\u00a0story, and we don’t get too many of them these days. \u00a0And the idea is simple enough. \u00a0Colossus still thinks his little sister can be saved, so every year he\u00a0leads another group of X-Men on a raid to try and save her. \u00a0\u00a0(Yes, I know, if you’re being sensible, you wouldn’t choose to go on a predictable day each year. \u00a0But it’s a magic story, so\u00a0fairytale logic is fine.) \u00a0The raid never works. \u00a0Last year they actually reached her, but\u00a0amazingly enough\u00a0she turned out\u00a0to be incredibly evil and turned Colossus’ arm demonic before the team\u00a0could retreat. \u00a0Cyclops sees this as a signal that she’s a lost cause and it’s time to stop risking bodies on her. \u00a0Colossus, being Colossus, sees it as a sign that he’s getting closer,\u00a0and\u00a0this year will be the one. \u00a0A bunch of X-Men agree to go with him anyway, and, well, that works out for everyone about as well as you’d imagine. \u00a0For example, if you’ve gone to great lengths to quarantine a demon army,\u00a0it’s maybe not the best idea in the world to\u00a0give them a chance to capture\u00a0your teleporter.<\/p>\n

Building on her\u00a0relationship with Colossus from X-Force<\/em>, Domino is the main supporting character here, and it’s a pairing that works very well. \u00a0Colossus is a sturdy, heroic fellow, but on his own he can be a little bit plodding. \u00a0Domino brings a bit of spark to the story, and gives him something to bounce off. \u00a0She’s a very good sounding board that brings out all the strengths of Colossus’ character, as well as providing him with a reality check that can keep the plot on the rails.<\/p>\n

I’m about to give away the ending, by the way, so stop here if\u00a0that bothers you.<\/p>\n

You might assume that this would be a story about the X-Men trying to cure the\u00a0Inferno and restore New York. \u00a0In fact, it’s not – there’s never any\u00a0suggestion that the Inferno is reversible. \u00a0It’s just\u00a0treated by everyone as\u00a0a fact of life that simply has to be contained. \u00a0All Colossus is trying to do is rescue Illyana from it. Belatedly, Cyclops does suggest that they should have been fighting back all along, but\u00a0it’s far too late for that. \u00a0So all this leads to a somewhat unexpected ending where, as is traditional, most of the X-Men get wiped out, Illyana is destroyed rather than saved, and Colossus, Domino and (somewhat randomly) Boom-Boom \u00a0simply leave the domain\u00a0behind them as a write-off.<\/p>\n

This succeeds more than you’d expect. \u00a0Leave aside the fact that curing the Inferno probably wasn’t an option because the demons are needed as cannon fodder in the core\u00a0Secret Wars<\/em> series; it would have been a cutesy ending anyway.\u00a0\u00a0This isn’t\u00a0an exercise in nihilism; the arc here is about Colossus coming to terms with a lost cause and finally being able to move on. \u00a0Illyana is gone long before the story even starts. \u00a0Obviously, a lot fewer people would have died if he’d got to the point quicker, but at least\u00a0the surviving three move on while there’s still something\u00a0worth moving on with.<\/p>\n

There are bits that feel too abrupt. \u00a0Mr Sinister is given a big build-up and taken off the board rather too quickly to be satisfying. \u00a0The joke of baby Nathan having grown up into a little boy Cable who already loves huge guns is cute but doesn’t go anywhere.\u00a0\u00a0 A coda with Madelyne becoming the new Baron isn’t a particularly satisfying ending, and I can only assume it’s there because\u00a0she’s going to turn up in that role in\u00a0Secret Wars<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But the series does succeed in getting the warped version of Manhattan across, playing off the insanity of Inferno while holding on to something very human\u00a0in Colossus, and keeping him sympathetic even while his obsessions are the cause of everything going to hell. \u00a0There’s a story thread in here that works, even when\u00a0the subplots don’t all land,\u00a0largely through the force of personality of Colossus and Domino as a double act – something that\u00a0both the writing and art can take credit for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the day,\u00a0What If…? used to\u00a0do nothing but imagine what might have happened if\u00a0a high-profile story had turned out differently. \u00a0The answers tended to be pretty similar:\u00a0something terrible would have happened\u00a0– otherwise, what\u00a0would it say about the stakes in the\u00a0original story? \u00a0Bad things would ensue,\u00a0alternate versions of major characters would probably die, and some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3213,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions\/3213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}